PINIMAGEHave you ever taken a bite of a meal and thought to yourself, “This tastes like…nothing.” After a few bites you find yourself scrambling for a salt shaker. We’ve all been there. Food tastes better when it’s seasoned with salt.
I actually have to keep a close eye on my daughter, Sophie, at meal time. If I’m not watching, she will pour salt on everything on her plate – whether it needs it or not. Every time I turn around, I see her trying to quietly shake salt on something. It’s in those moments that I protest loudly and try to back it up with some scientific research but I haven’t actually gotten to that research yet so it comes out as a poorly constructed argument and turns into “Because I said so.”
Although too much salt can ruin a dish, no salt can be equally horrible. I remember a time long ago when I was traveling with a college singing team. A family invited us to come and have lunch with them after the morning church service. I’m amazed that I still remember this meal since it was roughly 20 years ago. I remember the dining room of their home. I remember where I sat at the table. I remember being famished.
She placed a roast on the table and I couldn’t wait to dig in. I took a bite of the roast and realized it had not been seasoned in any way. I looked around for the salt but she didn’t have any on the table. It became apparent that this family didn’t like to use salt in their dishes. I spent the remainder of the meal, chewing and gulping down my food in between drinks of water while I fought off the hiccups. It felt like a test of endurance, as the roast was a little dry and had no taste really at all. I smiled and chatted with the gracious couple but struggled so hard to finish my plate. I don’t remember a time before or since where I wanted nothing more than for someone to pass the salt!
PINIMAGEI’m a huge “Chopped” fan. It’s a show on the Food Network where people compete with an unknown basket of ingredients which must be made into a culinary masterpiece that will be judged by 4 judges. I love to see the creative ideas of the chefs and sometimes wish I could somehow try the dishes myself. But often a criticism of the judges is that, as creative and delightfully appealing the dish might appear, they couldn’t overlook that the chef forgot to season the dish with salt. It’s a big FAIL.
Salt’s a unique substance. It’s taste is strong and distinct but amazingly when added to a dish, it doesn’t ruin or overpower it. Instead, salt makes the taste of food come alive.
That being said, I find it so cool that Christ tells His disciples and all believers, for that matter, that we are the “salt of the earth”.
“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.” Matthew 5:13
As I went deeper in studying this passage, I was challenged by the words of Matthew Henry in his commentary:
Have salt in yourselves, else you cannot diffuse it among others, Mk. 9:50. …What great blessings they (Christ followers) are to the world. Mankind, lying in ignorance and wickedness, were a vast heap of unsavoury stuff, ready to putrefy; but Christ sent forth his disciples, by their lives and doctrines, to season it with knowledge and grace, and so to render it acceptable to God, to the angels, and to all that relish divine things.
If they (Christ followers) be not, they are as salt that has lost its savour. If you, who should season others, are yourselves unsavoury, void of spiritual life, relish, and vigour; if a Christian be so, his condition is very sad because He is irrecoverable.
Wherewith shall it be salted? Salt is a remedy for unsavoury meat, but there is no remedy for unsavoury salt. Christianity will give a man a distinct taste; but if a man can take up and continue the profession of it, and yet remain flat and foolish, and graceless and insipid (tasteless), no other doctrine, no other means, can be applied, to make him savoury. If Christianity does not do it, nothing will. He is unprofitable: It is thenceforth good for nothing.
What a timely reminder! I am challenged each day, in each area of my life, to be salt that is useful to God – bringing glory to Him and hope to those around me. Let it be our prayer today that, when others are impacted by our lives, they don’t have to say, “Please, someone pass the salt!”
Rebecca - Hey Tammy, thanks for the good teaching on salt and thanks very much for praying with me last Sunday when I was so sad. May God continue to strengthen and protect your family, in Jesus’ Name !!